Sunday, February 14, 2010

OK so I detailed out the whole game on KDKA.com earlier today, but obviously in a recap story there's things I can't say to remain as an objective journalist.

That's what this platform is for right?

So here we go.

For one, I am not happy at all with seeing the Pens blow the lead....again.

They did it against the Capitals last Sunday, they did it against the Rangers the other night and they did it not once, not twice, but THREE times today against the Predators.

Good Lord.

This has been a problem for months and if the Pens were as explosive as they are, I'm not so sure they're one point out of the Atlantic Division lead.

Crosby got his 42nd goal of the season to open the scoring and Brooks Orpik got his first goal in 112 games to break a 2-2 tie in the third.

Fleury made some nice saves throughout the game to keep the Pens in the game, but surrendered goals against Martin Erat and Cal O'Reilly in the shootout.

Kris Letang and Crosby were denied by Dan Ellis and that was that.

I'd go into more detail, but there's really no point.

The effort wasn't there for 60 minutes and the Pens are lucky to get a point.

Their next game isn't until March 2, due to the Olympic break.

Now, going back to the other day I meant to tell this gem of a story, but figured I'd save it.

On Friday, I took my wife down to the Mellon Arena to go get autographs after the morning skate.

It was freezing out there, but she was a trooper and went along to help out and use her charm to help score some more signatures.

I will go on the record and say, I do not sell these. I am purely a collector and am not just going down there to make a buck like some other people I see there.

Anyway, we get to the arena around 11 a.m. and the players start filing out shortly before noon.

For those doing the math, that's 45 minutes roughly and did I mention it was freezing out there and we were standing in a snowbank to be up near the front of the line? No? Well there you go.

Why is any of this relevant?

Some girl from south Florida was there gushing her Pens knowledge. I'm OK with hearing other stories from fans and such, but here's where I draw the line.

There's four types of fans in this world.

1- Bandwagon - No explanation needed.

2 - Casual - The follow the team and sport, but don't know stats and wouldn't recognize any of the players on the street if they bumped into them.

3 - Die Hard - I throw myself into this. We have rituals and routines and know more about the team than we probably should and for no good reason.

It's been documented on here before that I haven't changed clothes or shaved for a period of time because the team was winning.

During the playoffs I only shaved after every playoff round because of work and work alone.

I had a daily routine that somehow kept spreading to all facets of my life, down to what songs I would listen to and from which bands and in what order during the playoffs.

If this sounds like OCD, it probably is, but when I veered away from the plan the Pens lost. Every time. When I nailed my 24 hour routine, they won, 16 times and hoisted the Stanley Cup.

4 - Obsessive and Ignorant - These are the types of people who think the world revolves around them. They think their team will always win even when the team sucks and is in last place and out of contention.

These are also the same individuals who think they know everything about the player's personal lives.

Ladies and gentlemen, this woman outside the Igloo on Friday was No. 4 and had a voice that I would prefer Fran Drescher to.

My wife is more a hybrid of options two and three and it's only because of me. As such, she was even getting pissed at this girl.

This girl and her friend were chatting (non-stop) for the entire time we were there. I don't think she took a breath.

If that wasn't bad enough, she starts talking about rumors about some of the Pens in their personal lives.

I don't claim to know anything about the player's personal lives. I don't really care to know about their personal lives either.

As long as they're good citizens and being productive members of the team, I'm happy.

Not this girl.

One shining example was the topic of Marc-Andre Fleury and his supposed girlfriend. Again, I don't know if he has one, don't care either. I'm certainly not going to waste my time looking it up either to further illustrate the glaring differences between Fans of the third and fourth varieties.

This girl turns to her friend and says "I hear she's not even that pretty either."

I wish I had a picture of this girl to post on here to make this next line even more amusing.

If that wasn't calling the kettle black, I don't know what is.

I'm not trying to be mean, but when you're overweight and your face makes little kids run in fear, don't harp on athletes wives/girlfriends.

It's a known fact that 99% of NHL players have hot significant others. Mike Fisher is engaged to Carrie Underwood for crying out loud. The other one percent either have average looking mates or none at all.

Not trying to sound sexist or anything, but even women athletes bring home good looking guys too, so it goes both ways.

Anyway, the jealously oozing out of this girl was palpable and I'm pretty sure the snow pile around her was melting at an alarming rate anytime Fleury's name came up.

As for the friend, there's a lot of bridges in and around the city of Pittsburgh, but for a couple hours the bridge-keeping troll was not at her post.

So flash forward a little bit, every player that exits the building she's yelling at as they're getting in their cars to come over to us.

On top of that, she's telling anyone in earshot who is going to stop and who isn't. As if this sort of thing is done on a scheduled basis.

She had a sign she made that looked like a 2-year-old had drawn it up and was trying to get the whole team to sign it.

Finally I had enough and moved to the other side of the entrance/exit to the parking lot as Bill Guerin rolls up.

I go over and get his autograph despite the all-knowing psychic predicting that he wouldn't stop.

Again, the main reason I went was to get my Crosby jersey signed so that I could frame it and mount it on my wall.

As Sid pulls up and gets out of his car, she starts yelling "I came all the way from Florida, please sign my sign!!!!"

As Sid was signing my jersey I wanted to be kind and warn him of what he was about to encounter, but there were some other nice people on the other side that deserved a chance to get his signature.

It was also apparent that she thought she was friends with the players because of having met a few for 30 seconds while they signed her pathetic sign.

This girl is the real reason why I hate the obsessive fans as much as bandwagoners. Bandwagoners suck because when the team isn't on top they're jumping on the one who is.

These obsessive/ignorant fans think they know everything and are too blinded by their egos and inner fears of rejection to see things clearly.

Anyway, I hope she had a safe trip back to Florida and I also hope to not run into her again.

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